Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Man Bites Dog

Originally released in Belgium in 1992, directed by Rémy Belvaux , "Man Bites Dog" follows a film crew following a serial killer (flawlessly played by Benoît Poelvoorde) for a documentary. Filmed in black and white in a documentary style, Poelvoorde is followed as he commits crimes, mugging for the camera and interacting with a society that does not understand his awkward personality. The film crew is not above the danger (two members are actually killed) and eventually acts as accomplices for the sake of their story. Don't ask the obvious questions. Where does one find an active serial killer that will allow a film crew to document their activities (in today's reality TV mentality, it is becoming less of a stretch), is there a moral obligation to stop filming and alert the authorities and is the film a document of the killer or is the killer a product of the documentary?

2 comments:

I remember renting this film strictly because the cover looked "cool" and because I was into action movie shoot-em-ups at the time.

I was completely unprepared for what followed. I was young enough where I couldn't really discern if it was real or fake, and I felt absolutely mortified by the fact that I laughed out loud several times.

Since then, I've seen it a few more times and am more and more impressed with how they use the film format and limitations to their advantage (Breaking the fourth wall, utilizing sound, the other documentary crew, etc...). It really is a well crafted (albeit disturbing) film.